Blacknifes 50g Battle of SPS learning
 

I've had my 33 sumpless over a year.. Learned lots.

After all summer of being unemployed the tank looking like crap.. And no money to spend on it.. I get home tomorrow after my first 10 days back at work to see what is gone on in there.. How much work am I going to have, what am I going to have to cram into the weekend to make it look good before I go back to work..

I hate working on the road.


time for some more automated upgrades..

More to follow :)

Tank looked good.

HA is still out of control, Pretty sure it is just from to replace my lights, as it never slowed down after getting the damsels out. There was a very slight hint of cyano but not the heavy dose like I had briefly before I went away.

Stopped by the lfs on the way home and got a lawnmower blenny, hopefully he will pick at some of that ha while I'm away at work. Got one peppermint shrimp to hopefully try eating the little apistas that keep magically appearing, I keep trying to kill them and they keep trying to grow back. I have only seen it once since I put it in, hopefully the last addition doesn't make a meal of it. I could not say no to getting a tube anemone though, i've wanted one for a while and they look so purdy. cleaned up the few corals that had fallen onto the sand bed and put it in. I might have to get some more glue just to make sure there are no accidents :)

too bad I missed the fragfest, oh well there will be more frags



I have been getting an idea for the next tank, the location I have my tank there is no room for a stand it is in bay window kind of thing that has a kind of ledge or sitting area in it so no room for a sump. I want to find or get a tank that is the same depth as the window, and then build a little mini sump/refugeeum/hardware area into the back of it so everything is out of sight, Kind of like the all in one tanks available but fit to my window. I guess I am just looking for any opinions on that kind of setup, or advice that would change the way it gets set up.

I had HA go nuts in my 60 for the last little while, I found a little brown tang that did wonders for it, as most lawnmowers will only take care of short HA.

Sea hares or dragon gobies will take care of it too.

As for the FragFest there is always next year. :)

Ken - BWA

I hear ya, I am away 22 days at a time. Wife feeds and looks after then. But the tanks are allways in bad shape when I come home. Coraline on glass, needing water changes etc

I was picking at it pretty regularly all summer and it never seemed to make a big dent so perhaps if both me and the fish pick at it it will make a bigger dent.

I have thought sea hare's but have not seen any on any of my shopping trips, would one sea hare clean out the HA in time and starve?

Would the tube anemone have to be rehoused while the sea hare was in there?

Thought i killed the anemone earlier..


but i think its going to pull through.


lesson learned don't siphon anywhere near the mucous tube it gets picked up pretty easily :)

i ripped a small chunk off of it while cleaning but it is back out fully extended 20 mins later. tough little bugger I guess.

picked up some LR today and one piece had an aiptasia on it well once the kids were in bed I boiled up some water and with my 2 oz seringe I took the rock out and dose it little bugger. it is now completly white and I believe dead may have lost about 1 inch of LR. meaning everything within 1 inch maybe dead but better 1 inch dead than a tank full of aiptasia. I am keeping my fingers crossed as I could not get the little bugger out of the crevis it was in.

Bill

Added a phosban and carbon reactor and a k2 a couple days ago. I think I can see a difference all ready. Did a 1 bucket cleanup water change and sucked up all the red slime, usually it is grown back thin the next day… it's not growing back at all.

everything is growing good, green rodidactis split again, perhaps ill take some update pics and some old pics for the evolution page, I know every time I look back at how it looked when I started I want to laugh.

the little crab is long gone from the christmass tree coral, and it is still the same size or perhaps a touch larger than when i got it. the little hitchhiker has plucked many of the spikes off each polyp, i hope not for the worse, and the challice at the base of it is slowly regaining color and meat.


I want to add a few more small fish, but I'm not sure what.

Last week the girl noticed the ato was not working right and decided to fill the tank up.. . saw some white stuff in the bottom of the water container so stired it all up<kaulk> and poured it in till it was full then sends me a text a while later saying the tank looks like crap and she thinks its her fault.


Christmas tree coral is now near death, it looks all melted on the outsides and really shrank down. and at least one snail died.. everything else has slowly bounced back.


I missed out on the store tours yesterday but its probably a good thing, work is kind of sketchy lately and christmas is coming so i have to pinch every $ i can for a bit. did my own mini store tour today but bought nothing. even though i was really tempted.

after i got back i looked in my refugeeum and my cheato is all full of HA agian, if i knew that i would have grabbed some fresh stuff from one of the stores if they had any. It is not really spreading around the tank any more but it has not stopped growing. I need to do more water changes but i have been slacking on that a bit lately due to the pain of having to pick water up all the time. hopefully santa can afford a RO unit for the holidays after he is done brining the kids presents.